Latest news with #TacticalEmergencyCasualtyCare
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Yahoo
No Firefighter Is Surprised by What Just Happened in Idaho
Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. On Sunday, 20-year-old Wess Roley, it's alleged, started a wildfire near Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, then lay in wait for firefighters to respond. When they did, he apparently opened fire, killing Kootenai County Fire and Rescue Chief Frank Harwood and Coeur d'Alene Fire Department Battalion Chief John Morrison. He also critically wounded Coeur d'Alene Fire Department engineer David Tysdal. Roley was found dead, with a shotgun by his side, later that day. The attack dominated headlines, becoming a global story and immediately sparking political tribal skirmishes on social media. The enormous interest makes sense. It's a horrible tragedy. We expect this kind of thing when it comes to police officers or other professionals for whom violence is a tool of the trade. Hearing that other crisis responders, especially firefighters, who are unarmed and there only to help, have come under fire could be shocking. But not to me, and not, I suspect, to other firefighters. Last year, almost to the day, I gathered together in a sweltering high school auditorium with about 50 firefighters, EMTs, and a small cadre of cops to undergo rescue task force training, which focuses on how civilian personnel, like firefighters, can partner with armed law enforcement to render critical aid to victims in a mass-casualty incident. The training was highly effective, emphasizing command and control, triage, trauma life support, and casualty evacuation. It lasted just a few hours and was packed with critical information, so I tried to pay close attention. I'll admit that I did have to put in some effort. Because, for the most part, I'd already been through it when I took Tactical Combat Casualty Care training before deploying to Iraq in 2007. While tweaked somewhat to deal with a domestic incident (such as dealing with distraught parents during a school shooting), the Venn diagram for the two trainings was almost a circle. Indeed, the idea that responders to shooting incidents, whether armed or unarmed, should undergo TCCC training is an element of the 2013 Hartford Consensus. This was a kind of national throwing up of the hands that accepted that shootings could not be stopped, and shifted focus to a more effective response, recommending that responders adopt a tripartite mission when time is of the essence: 1) Stop the killing, 2) stop the dying, and 3) save as many as you can. The Hartford Consensus contains elements of a variety of mass casualty programs, including Federal Emergency Management Agency, emergency medical services protocols, advanced trauma life support, Stop the Bleed, and Tactical Emergency Casualty Care, the civilian equivalent of TCCC. The protocols of the instruction were so eerily similar to my Iraq pre-deployment training as to evoke intense déjà vu, and not just in terms of the triage discussion—the brutal calculus wherein first responders make the impossible decision to focus overstretched resources on those who are most likely to be saved, with the tacit understanding that there are those who will have to wait, perhaps interminably, for help. I also recognized the trauma life support measures, from tourniquet application, to the instruction in how to correctly vent a sucking chest wound, to the direction to use an elbow, shoulder, or knee to apply pressure to a convex surface. We covered wound packing (stuffing the hole with the Curlex rolled gauze we habitually carried in Iraq for that purpose in the hopes of stopping bleeding), dealing with clotting powder, and stabilizing victims for transport. But the most striking commonality was the way this training taught unarmed first responders to move with armed operators in the 'warm zone,' an area where the active shooter was not immediately present but where a shooting threat could still manifest. Rescue task force guidance stridently reinforced the lesson that unarmed civilian firefighters like me would be required to move in the warm zone to assist with all of the duties required above, necessarily placing us at risk of … well … getting shot. As a hedge against this possibility, law enforcement officers would be assigned to our contact team with the duty of protecting us and engaging any suspects who opened fire. As a targeting officer (a kind of tactical intelligence analyst) in Iraq, I was armed, but using that weapon was not my job. I carried it as a last resort. Instead, I relied on the 'hard operators' in my team to keep me safe, knowing that if they fell, I had at least a means of holing up and shooting it out with the enemy until the quick reaction force could extract me. Much of the training I received before deploying to Iraq centered on how I could move and integrate with hard operators in my team, staying out of their way until I was needed. This instruction reflects the reality of rising levels of violence directed at firefighters. There are the instances when we have to respond to active shooter incidents, but also, there are the times people shoot at or assault us, as happened in Coeur d'Alene. In 2023 Drexel University's Center for Firefighter Injury Research and Safety Trends noted a 69 percent increase in assaults on firefighters from 2021 to 2022 (from 350 to 593). Many of these incidents occur during medical calls, rather than fire responses. And this number may be an undercount, as FIRST looked only at those incidents reported in the media. I can personally attest that in the hypermasculine and stoic culture of the fire service, a minor assault that didn't result in injury or generate media attention could easily go unremarked on. Indeed, in the District of Columbia in 2023, the firefighters union complained of an increase in assaults against firefighters, describing the attacks as occurring 'fairly often.' The problem isn't confined to the United States. Three-quarters of German firefighters experienced some form of public violence during a response as of February of this year. A recent assault on a Canadian firefighter prompted changes to the criminal code to include firefighters and emergency medical services, and a small town in British Columbia authorized 15,000 Canadian dollars to purchase body armor for firefighters after an attack. While the impact of warfare is obviously a separate scenario, I would be remiss not to note the terrible toll Russia's invasion of Ukraine is taking on European firefighters. Numbers from the U.K. show that the figures are even worse for EMS responders, with whom firefighters usually work closely. The critical question is: why? The answer is complex, evolving, and desperately in need of attention. Spiraling distrust of institutions is an obvious culprit, and the tight bond between fire and police services, who often share resources, means that tensions in the rapport between the public and police are reflected on anyone showing up to a crisis with a uniform on. Then there's the increase in mental health–related calls, which frequently put firefighters in situations in which they are dealing with potentially unstable and reactive individuals like Roley, with the corresponding potential for violent outcomes. But the bottom line is that we don't know why this is happening, only that it is. The American fire service is largely dependent on volunteers and is already under increasing stress from climate change, a decline in volunteerism, and shifting technological demands. Violence against firefighters will only make this worse and may affect the decisionmaking of the people on which the entire system depends. I'm not getting paid for this—why am I risking my life? is a question Americans contemplating volunteering may be forgiven for asking. Given the trends, it's a question for which we owe them an answer. The time for formal, funded, and organized study of the reasons for violence against crisis responders is now.
Int'l Business Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
Jack Byrd's Security Training Programs at Solaren: An Industry Assessment
Jack K. Byrd III , CEO of Solaren Risk Management, has developed the company from a small startup to a security provider with operations across the southeastern United States since its founding in 2017 with Curtis E. Dodson. Previously employed at the Davidson County Sheriff's Office, Byrd has implemented rigorous training programs for the company's personnel. "One of the most important aspects of any industry is the level of expertise required to be successful," explains Bethany Gill, Solaren's Chief Operations Officer. "In the security field, training courses aren't just mandatory by state law—they're essential for learning how to effectively secure people, places, and assets." Training Program Structure Solaren's training regimen includes both state-mandated certification courses and additional specialized training. These programs are designed to address both compliance requirements and practical field skills. " Solaren Risk Management has been a private security provider for seven years, and we've proven ourselves by consistently supplying professional and qualified security personnel, thanks to the rigorous training we put them through," Gill notes. "We continue this commitment to education by requiring regular training each year to renew licenses and refresh our officers on the latest advances in safety technology and tactics." Solaren's training is conducted by a combination of in-house staff and external instructors. "Our training coordinator, Darrell Webb, is phenomenal," says Gill. "He's active law enforcement and he knows his stuff for sure. He does a lot of the training through the law enforcement agency, the department that he works in." Gill notes that Jack Byrd also maintains active involvement in the training program: "Jack himself is qualified to be a trainer in a lot of capacities and he's a nut about the training classes. He's always interested in learning new stuff, trying new things." Training Content Areas Solaren's curriculum includes standard security certifications as well as specialized training modules. One focus area is documentation procedures, which the company describes as crucial for effective security operations. "We have regular report writing classes because not everybody knows how to write a report. Not everybody knows what categories on their report mean," explains Gill. The company also provides tactical medical training, specifically the Tactical Emergency Casualty Care (TECC) course, a three-day course that covers topics like how to use tourniquets and how to do CPR. Gill recounts an incident where this training was applied: "Somebody ran up on one of our guards while he was working as security at a bar; he was on the street doing ID checks. A guy ran up to him and had been stabbed in the arm. And this officer that we had applied a tourniquet—not everybody knows how to apply a tourniquet. The fact that he had that know-how, and he was trained in that capacity, and he actually used that knowledge in the field ultimately helped save a life." Solaren's other training components include armed and unarmed security certification, active shooter response, de-escalation techniques, and Dallas Law certification for bar security in Nashville. Employee Recognition System Solaren has implemented performance recognition programs that acknowledge excellence in adhering to the company's training standards. "At the end of the year, we have a Christmas party, a company Christmas party that we do," Gill explains. "If somebody based on those performance evaluations throughout the year has just done an exceptional job, they'll get an award, which usually correlates with some kind of pay boost." "They could receive an extra week's worth of pay, or if they get a major award, it's two weeks of pay or maybe something like that added onto their next check," she notes. "There's a lot of incentive that we give them to do a good job." In the case of the security officer who applied a tourniquet, additional recognition was provided. "We also took him to Bridgestone. We took him to see a show, whatever show he wanted, he picked it out. Everything that night was covered," shares Gill. Internal Advancement Opportunities Solaren maintains an internal promotion pathway, which the company describes as an important element of their personnel development strategy, with positions ranging from field personnel to operations coordinators. "Nine times out of 10, coordinators are people who have worked for us out in the field and have really done a good job," explains Gill. "We've got plenty of people that we've pulled in from out in the field to become field operations coordinators, people who work in the office and supervise multiple people because they've just proven themselves out in the field." "They are always on time, they always do a good job. They know what to do in situations." Technological Training Components As with many security firms, Solaren reports incorporating technology training into its professional development programming. This includes instruction on communication systems and surveillance equipment. "We try to cover as many bases as possible. When it comes to the training aspect, it's very important," Gill emphasizes. For large-scale security operations, the company describes an extended preparation process: "We spend months in advance preparing for an event. We make sure that everybody knows where they're going to be, knows what equipment they're going to be issued." Field Decision-Making Approach According to company materials, the training philosophy at Solaren emphasizes independent problem-solving capabilities, an approach that enhances the efficiency of their service delivery, which often requires split-second decisions. "We do our best to make sure that our team can do things mainly by themselves and solve their own problems, rather than a 'teach a man to fish' kind of situation," explains Gill. While personnel have a level of independence supported by training, the company also utilizes mobile technology to support field personnel: "The app that we use to organize everybody, it's got forms, it's got documents on there. If we need a document from you, we're going to put it on there so you can easily just do it from your phone," notes Gill. Performance Measurement Methods Solaren implements regular performance evaluations to assess security personnel. "We do those both quarterly and annually," Gill shares. These evaluations consider multiple factors, including punctuality, client feedback, and incident response effectiveness. Client feedback appears to be weighted heavily in these assessments: "If the clients themselves say a really good thing about this specific guard, then that resounds with us very deeply," explains Gill. Industry Context and Challenges Since its founding with two employees in 2017, Solaren has grown significantly, with company sources claiming over 1,200 personnel as of 2025 and operations in five U.S. states. The company has expanded to provide services including armed and unarmed security, off-duty police services, and investigation services for commercial and government clients. But Solaren's training approach exists within an industry facing significant workforce challenges. Gill acknowledges these challenges: "It's hard to find people who genuinely are just passionate about this kind of industry." The company has expanded its training to address emerging security concerns, including cybersecurity, deepfakes, and infrastructure protection, according to company news publications, and it continues to provide services for major events and has been involved in disaster response operations as well.
